One Of The Employer’s Bagful Of Retaliatory Weapons: The Performance Improvement Plan
Through their decades of experience representing retaliation victims, our wrongful termination lawyers in Marion County, Florida know that many employees who lodge discrimination complaints are targeted for retaliation. When targeting employees for retaliation, employers have a bagful of retaliatory weapons at their disposal, including disciplinary action, reduction in pay, disadvantageous transfer, and demotion. When targeting employees for retaliatory termination, the employer’s go-to retaliatory weapon is the performance improvement plan. In the retaliation context, employers use performance improvement plans to provide pretextual cover for the desired ultimate retaliatory termination.
In this article, our wrongful termination lawyers in Marion County, Florida explain how the alleged facts in Garrett v. Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA, LLC, 317 F.Supp.3d 699 (E.D. Mich 2018) are illustrative of the role performance improvement plans may play in retaliation cases.
Wrongful Termination Lawsuit
In that case, a woman named Garrett brought a retaliation claim against her former employer Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA, LLC (“MBFS”) pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”). Under Title VII, employers are forbidden from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, national origin, sex, or religion. Title VII also prohibits employers from retaliating against employees because they complained about perceived discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, sex, or religion. Garrett alleges that she was fired in retaliation for complaining about perceived gender discrimination in the workplace.
MBFS, a subsidiary of Daimler AG, is an automotive finance company. Garrett began working for MBFS in 2000. Garrett maintains that she complained of gender discrimination in July and October 2014. Garrett also contends that, in October 2015, she complained of retaliation to a human resources employee, Ballard, after her department was reorganized. Over five months later, in April 2016, Garrett was put on a Performance Improvement Plan (“PIP”) by the Operations Manager, with input from Ballard.
The PIP states that Garrett had “repeatedly shown disregard for input from team members and management,” and that she was not “taking accountability for her interactions with others.” Specific examples were listed including: “sales support e-mails containing conflict between [Garrett] and [a co-worker] in early March 2016”; and “complaints from SafeGuard, a vendor relationship that [Garrett] was in charge of managing, regarding [Garrett’s] aggressive demeanor.” Upon receiving the PIP, Garrett complained to Ballard that the PIP was retaliatory.
Before making her alleged initial gender discrimination complaint in July 2014, Garrett’s performance at MBFS had been evaluated as “Excellent” for Appraisal Years 2006 through 2014. In the sixteen years prior to the July 2014 alleged gender discrimination complaint, Garrett never received any discipline or warning, nor did she have any documented performance problems.
On November 7, 2016, management met regarding an alleged incident of unprofessional behavior by Garrett towards a co-worker on November 4, 2016. On November 8, 2016, MBFS terminated Garrett’s employment. According to MBFS, management and human resources ultimately decided to terminate Garrett’s employment because they believed her behavior was not going to change and that she was hurting team morale.
“PIP Was A Pretext For Retaliation”
MBFS filed a motion with the trial court seeking dismissal of Garrett’s retaliatory discharge claim. In moving for dismissal, MBFS argued that Garrett was fired for the legitimate, non-retaliatory reason—her alleged unprofessional behavior towards a co-worker in November 2016 after being on a PIP for similar behavior. In further support of its proffered legitimate, non-retaliatory reason, MBFS pointed to its PIP policy, which indicates that an employee can be terminated for the reoccurrence of behavior addressed by a PIP. The trial court denied MBFS’ motion for dismissal and ruled that Garrett was entitled to proceed to a jury trial on her retaliatory discharge claim.
In denying MBFS’ motion for dismissal, the trial court found that, “viewing the facts in the light most favorable to [Garrett], the PIP was a pretext for retaliation.” The trial court observed that MBFS has “stressed that [Garrett] was placed on a PIP due to ‘performance issues’ and not to any discipline or behavior issues.” In fact, the trial court noted, “it is undisputed that there is no record of any disciplinary action against [Garrett] throughout her sixteen-year career.” “However,” the trial court explained, “the laundry list of performance issues that appear on the PIP is nowhere to be found in the many documented performance evaluations in [Garrett’s] record from 2006 until her termination in 2016.”
“These performance evaluations,” the trial court pointed out, “rate [Garrett’s] performance as ‘Excellent’ from 2006 to 2014 and ‘Successful’ from 2015 to 2016.” The trial court further observed that the “performance evaluations are replete with praise for [Garrett’s] abilities to: build effective working relationships; communicate effectively; demonstrate and support top performance; take responsibility; demonstrate accountability and credibility; contribute to a work culture of respect, enthusiasm, inspiration, and dedication; seek and respond to feedback; and work effectively in a team.” Based on this evidence, the trial court concluded that “a reasonable jury could find there to be suspicious inconsistencies between issues documented as the reason for [Garrett’s] PIP and [Garrett’s] performance evaluations.”
Marion County Wrongful Termination Lawyers
Based in Ocala, Florida and representing workers throughout Florida, our wrongful termination lawyers in Marion County, Florida have litigated retaliation cases in Florida courts for more than twenty years. If you have been retaliated against for exercising your employee rights or have questions about your protection from retaliation, please contact our office for a free consultation with our wrongful termination lawyers in Marion County, Florida. Our employee rights law firm takes wrongful termination cases on a contingency fee basis. This means that there are no attorney’s fees incurred unless there is a recovery, and our attorney’s fees come solely from the monetary award that you recover.
